Computer-aided map navigation tools have achieved widespread acceptance. A user can find an address or directions with map navigation tools available at various Web sites. Some software programs allow a user to navigate over a map, zooming in towards the ground or zooming out away from the ground, or moving between different geographical positions. In cars, GPS devices have provided rudimentary road navigation for years. More recently, map navigation software for cellular telephones and other mobile computing devices has allowed users to zoom in, zoom out, and move around a map that shows details about geographical features, town, city, county and state locations, roads, and buildings.
With a turn-by-turn navigation system, a list of directions for a route is organized as multiple items corresponding to steps along the route. The multiple items are typically presented in order to a user as the user travels along the route. In some systems, the user can scroll through the list of directions to see locations along the route associated with different items, or select one of the multiple items to see the location that is associated with the item. Usually, the current location of the user is shown, and the user can be alerted of an upcoming instruction so long as the appropriate item in the list of directions is selected as the user approaches. While such systems work well in some scenarios, in other scenarios the presentation of directions can be overly complicated or difficult to control interactively.